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The Call to Blossom

“And the day came when the risk it took to stay tight in the bud was greater than the risk it took to blossom.” ~Anaïs Nin

Judgement is the next to last card of the major arcana in the tarot. It represents the cleansing, clearing, healing and transitioning that happens when one cycle is ending and another is beginning. When Judgement calls, you are being beckoned by your Higher Self {or Spirit} to be more authentic, more creative, more generous, more compassionate, and more of YOU. More energy from Spirit is wanting to flow through you out into the world. You’re being asked to make room for this by allowing it to flow and cooperating with the transformation that’s in process.

You might feel the call of Judgement as an inner stirring or restlessness in it’s more subtle forms. A mild discomfort may be nagging at you as you start to dream about new ways to express yourself or wonder more about what your purpose or contribution might be. If this mild disturbance is ignored and left to simmer for a while it might show up as a deep ache for something more in your life or a depression. If things have been put off for a long while, the call to emerge may turn into an emergence-y that forces you to transition in a hurry. Whatever is coming up, you can trust that it is happening in the perfect way and at the perfect time for you. Your job is to stay spiritually awake and be a witness to your own blossoming.

Judgement always brings about healing of some kind. It’s healing that can only occur when the wounds have been witnessed and embraced by the cleansing light of consciousness. It requires taking an inventory of your life, looking honestly at what is working and what is not, examining your shadows, your wounds and embracing every aspect of yourself. It can feel like a pretty tall order if you approach it from the perspective of “I’m broken and need to fix all these damaged parts”… but that’s not what you’re being asked to do. Judgement is about bringing all of it into the LIGHT and letting it all be cleansed, healed and reintegrated.

Often this card depicts naked figures emerging out of tombs. They are being resurrected and called “home” by the angel’s trumpet. These figures are summoned to a higher octave of existence, and they emerge into that state naked as a symbol of their wholeness and authenticity. This can also speak to the process of cleansing that requires us to resurrect the shadows we have buried and embrace these fragmented parts of ourselves. It’s a process that calls for self-love and compassion. When we embrace the aspects of ourselves that we have been pushing away and resisting, tremendous healing occurs, and we emerge into a new life.

So what does this mean in terms of your day-to-day? As I said before, it may mean that you are feeling some discomfort, but fighting against it isn’t the answer. The guidance from Judgement is to take inventory and look at everything with wide-open eyes and a wide-open heart. The area where you’re feeling the most discomfort is the area to look at first. For example: If you feel like you’re finances are a mess, and it scares you to open your bank statements ~ then it’s time to take an honest look at what is going on there and find the shadows that need to be healed.

It’s actually pretty easy to find out where these shadows are. All you have to do is ask yourself, “What is my judgement of someone who allows their finances to get like this?” What is your answer? Do you judge a person like that to be stupid, selfish, irresponsible, or a loser? Whatever the painful area is, ask yourself this question: What is my judgement about this? You’ll soon discover that you have been your own condemning judge and jury all in one, and the process of becoming conscious of these patterns is exactly what is going to free you. If you’ve been resisting being a “stupid” person, that is your shadow and your job is to love and forgive the “stupid” part of you. This is what shadow work is all about, and there are many resources available to help you with this process. Check out any of the books by Debbie Ford for starters, or find a spiritual coach for support. This journey is worth every ounce of effort because it’s leading you to FREEDOM.

Ultimately, the Judgement card is about freedom from all those inner judgements which turn into shadows and drain away our ability to authentically express our Spirits. What is Judgement asking you to take a look at? It may be uncomfortable in the moment, but it’s a sign that something pretty amazing is in the works. Consider the tiny acorn. Everything necessary to become an oak tree is packed into this small seed. It doesn’t have to do anything or go get “oak tree” material from anywhere else. However, when the time comes, it does have to shed its hard outer shell and allow the seedling to sprout. It has to transition from being an acorn into a seedling and then into a sapling. Everything it needs is already within it, but it has to allow the transformation. When the Judgement card shows up it is time for a transition from self-judgement into self-compassion so that you can blossom and release the amazing YOU that has been bottled up inside. xo